Recent Activity

Preaching is not a display case for rhetorical ability; it is not a place to show how traditional or trendy we are; it is not a place to fulfill aspirations of glory. The pulpit is a place to die so that others might live.

When I complained about church, I complained about the usual things a kid complains about: the claustrophobia, the boredom. But Owen complained religiously. “A PERSON’S FAITH GOES AT ITS OWN PACE,” Owen Meany said. “THE TROUBLE WITH CHURCH IS THE SERVICE. A SERVICE IS CONDUCTED FOR A MASS AUDIENCE. JUST WHEN I START TO LIKE THE HYMN, EVERYONE PLOPS DOWN TO PRAY. JUST WHEN I START TO HEAR THE PRAYER, EVERYONE POPS UP TO SING. AND WHAT DOES THE STUPID SERMON HAVE TO DO WITH GOD? WHO KNOWS WHAT GOD THINKS OF CURRENT EVENTS? WHO CARES?”

If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.'

Skepticism is of no interest to us—it is never what people do not believe that is interesting, but rather that people do believe and hope, and what they believe—that alone is the important part. Church is the place of unshakeable hope.

We don’t like to stop what we’re doing—we think it wastes time. We don’t find it necessary to look—we think we already know. We find it difficult to listen because as another speaks, we are formulating a rebuttal. But failure to listen intensely can mean missing the message entirely, or it can lead to hearing the message only partially. To miss the message entirely means living in ignorance; to grasp it only partially can mean living with confusion.

“Scrutaria. You know what scrutaria is, right? Garbage. I told Sardi [one of the top officials of the Secretariat of State] no one is going to bother to read this thing. The verbosity! It’s just a diarrhea of blah, blah, blah, the Eucharist and this, the Eucharist and that. I said, why don’t you write a chapter about ‘The Eucharist and Eurostar’ or ‘The Eucharist and Google’? O Lord, deliver us! One hundred and twenty pages of this stuff! I said, who in the world accepted this thing? ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘the pope liked it.’ I said, okay, good luck, Jack!”

A life which remains without any ascetic discipline, which indulges in all the desires of the flesh as long as they are “permitted” by the justitia civilis [civil order], will find it difficult to enter the service of Christ. Satiated flesh is unwilling to pray and is unfit for self-sacrificing service.

Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance; it is baptism without the discipline of community; it is the Lord’s Supper without confession of sin; it is absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ.

O Lord, give all of us new hearts, open and obedient to you: hearts that love our neighbor and pray to you for our church. Lord, give us a good beginning; open your fatherly heart to us and lead us, one day, home to your kingdom of eternal reconciliation, through Christ the Lord! Amen.